Audit first. Then we work the list.
Every engagement starts the same way: a fixed-fee audit that tells you exactly where your marketing stands - including how AI tools answer when someone asks them for a lawyer like you. After that, most firms keep me on monthly to work the list in order. In the counties with real caseload behind them, a firm can also buy the market outright - after that, I stop taking new criminal defense clients there.
Start with the auditSee ServicesThree ways to work with me
A defined starting point, an ongoing engagement for firms that want the work done in order, and exclusivity for firms that want the market locked up.
The Audit
Starting at $2,000 • flat fee, quoted up front • about two weeks
- Your website, rankings, Google Business Profile, and reviews versus every competing firm in your courts
- The AI question: what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok actually say when asked for a lawyer with your caseload in your county - and why
- Intake check: what happens when a scared person calls or emails your office
- Where your market's cases actually are, from state caseload data
- A prioritized punch list: what to fix, in what order, and what to stop paying for
For: any firm that wants the truth about where it stands before spending another marketing dollar. The punch list is yours either way - you can run it yourself, hand it to your webmaster, or have me work it.
Monthly Oversight
Starting at $1,000/month • cancel anytime
- We work the audit punch list in priority order, every month
- Content, local SEO, and Google Business Profile improvements - executed or overseen
- Vendor and agency oversight: I read the reports your marketing people send and tell you what's real
- Intake and lead tracking so we know what's converting
- A monthly call, and my answer to any marketing question by email in between
For: firms that want a marketing director's judgment without a marketing director's salary - and want someone accountable for the list actually shrinking.
Market Exclusivity
Priced by market • based on county caseload
- Everything in Monthly Oversight
- Once you buy in, I stop taking new criminal defense clients in your courts - and stay stopped
- Priced by the size of the market being closed off, using the same state caseload data I publish
- First right of renewal - the market stays yours as long as you keep it
For: firms in the counties worth locking down - the bigger the caseload, the more it costs to close the door, and the more it's worth closing. I'll work with more than one firm in a market by default; exclusivity is what changes that, and once it's sold, it's sold.
Why audit-first, and how exclusivity actually works
The audit-first rule comes from the poker table: you don't put money in before you've read the table. Most firms come to me already spending - on an agency, on directories, on ads - without knowing which of those dollars are collecting and which are supplying. The audit reads the table. It routinely pays for itself in the first thing it tells you to stop buying.
The AI line item in the audit deserves a word about why I'm qualified to run it, because every consultant now claims AI fluency. Mine has a date on it: I was teaching computer science the day ChatGPT came out. I watched this field change in real time from the front of a classroom, and I've been building with these tools since they existed. When I test how the machines answer for your firm, I know what I'm looking at - and when a vendor tells you their product is "AI-powered," I know what questions make that claim fall over.
I also ran this play on my own firm before I ran it for anyone else. My criminal defense sites held #1 - sometimes #2 - statewide for "Massachusetts OUI lawyer," "drunk driving lawyer," and the other terms every firm in the state was bidding on, and the cases came in from every county. I did that on a solo practitioner's budget, against every legal marketing agency in Massachusetts. The rest of the record is here.
I'll say the quiet part: I'd rather charge too much than too little, and I'd rather do this work part time at a high hourly rate than full time at a discount. That's not a warning - it's the reason the work is worth hiring. A consultant who needs volume to make rent starts saying yes to firms and markets that don't fit. I don't need the volume, so I only take the engagements where I can actually move the numbers.
To be straightforward about it: by default, I'll work with more than one criminal defense firm in the same market. Exclusivity isn't the starting condition - it's something a firm buys.
Most marketing agencies run campaigns for three OUI firms in the same county and let them bid against each other, all three paying for the privilege. I don't love that model, but I also won't pretend every county is worth taking off the table for one client - in a small county, exclusivity would just be a favor with a price tag. In the big ones - Worcester, Middlesex, Suffolk, the counties with real caseload behind them - it's a different calculation, and worth paying for. The rule is simple: whoever buys exclusivity first gets it, I stop taking new criminal defense clients in that market, and it stays that way as long as they keep the engagement. Nothing sneaky - you're welcome to ask, before you sign anything, whether I'm already working with another firm in your courts.
Start with the audit.
Tell me your firm, your courts, and your current marketing spend. I'll confirm your market is open and we'll go from there.
Email RussellButton didn't open your mail? Write to russ@russellmatsonlaw.com directly - firm, courts, and what you're spending now is plenty to start.